


sold my soul but I won't stop running

by jynx



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: GAR logisitics, Gen, cody tries to be a good bro, fallout from fives's death, high angst warning, really uncomfortable decisions, rex making shit difficult
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:24:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23402521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jynx/pseuds/jynx
Summary: Cody calls a meeting with Rex after several brothers contact him about their Captain's odd and confrontational behaviour following Fives's death.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody & CT-7567 | Rex
Comments: 6
Kudos: 54
Collections: The Star Wars Riff Off





	sold my soul but I won't stop running

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dharmaavocado](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dharmaavocado/gifts).

> Thank you so much to wrennette, tiender, and herothief for looking over this beast. Title comes from k.flay's "Good News".
> 
> <3 thank you to Dharma for suggesting this, it was an excellent chance to make people scream.

Cody looked up from his desk as Rex came into his office, closing the door behind him and tugging off his bucket. His batchmate looked awful, dark circles under his eyes and looking paler than he had after that run-in with the Blue Shadow Virus. His freckles had even started to show, something he and General Kenobi had bitched about good-naturedly at length during the long flight times between battles. He looked like hell and if Cody hadn’t had almost a hundred different messages from the 501st about their Captain’s behaviour he would have ordered Rex to sickbay immediately, but one of those messages was from Kix himself who had already examined Rex and found nothing. 

Rex had been mouthing off, apparently, to anyone and everyone who would listen--and even some who wouldn’t, about the incident with Fives. Cody didn’t know the particulars about it, just that it had been classified at the highest level and that not even Kenobi’s codes worked to crack the file. Rex being caught up in that, and not taking a step back and keeping his mouth shut, was worrying Cody. 

“Sit down,” Cody said, pointing his stylus at the lone empty seat in his too-small office. “We need to talk.” 

“Is this a talk as my brother or as my commanding officer?” Rex asked as he slowly lowered himself into the chair, resting his bucket on his gently bouncing knee. 

“Can’t it be both?” Cody asked with a frown. Cody was Rex’s commanding officer, that was true, since the 501st was part of the Third System Armies. In this, Rex’s behaviour was Cody’s to deal with and it fell to him to mete out punishment, in whatever manner it was determined to be. 

“No,” Rex said bluntly. “You’re either one or the other right now.” 

Cody set his stylus down and stared at Rex, weighing which option would yield better results. The Rex he knew would respond better to a batchmate but the anxious, jittering man in front of him? He honestly didn't know how he'd react, he wasn’t acting like the Rex he knew. 

"As your Commander," Cody said slowly, testing the weight of the words on his tongue, "I have to talk to you about some concerns that have been brought to my attention." They felt like spent blaster rounds, as if he had already pulled the trigger himself. 

"You taking lessons from Kenobi now?" Rex asked, voice full of bitter poison as he looked to the side. "That's you now, hunh? All politic and proper." 

Cody blinked. "Your men are concerned about you and so am I," he said. "You haven't been the same since Fives--" 

"Since Fives was _murdered by our own brothers?_" Rex asked harshly as he looked at Cody, body coiled with tension and his leg finally stopped moving. "Since Fox and his gang of Senate lapdogs killed an unarmed brother right here on Coruscant where we should be safe? You mean since that happened? I wonder why." 

Cody sat back in his chair. "Please tell me you haven’t been saying that." It would explain Fox’s offer of a drink and also confirmed Cody’s worst suspicions. Rex’s words had already started attracting the wrong attention. His options became less about how he could help and more about damage control. 

Dogma they had been able to save, barely. He'd been a rule-loving shiny with no black marks against him aside from a three-month stint in a penal battalion for punching a higher ranking officer. Rex had no option for a penal battalion if he misbehaved, no possible reprogramming the Jedi could save him from. 

Rex had made enemies on Kamino as a cadet and he had made even more while working with Skywalker. Cody knew if the Kaminoans ever got their hands on Rex again that his batchmate would never be granted a clean, merciful death. He’d be taken apart over and over and over again while the longnecks searched every piece of what made Rex _Rex_ to find out where they had gone wrong and he had gone _right_. There was only one final, ultimate option that Cody didn’t want to turn to unless Rex forced his hand. 

Rex sneered at him, “And what if I had? It’s the truth!” 

Cody let out a slow, steady breath. “Rex,” he said, pausing to swallow to wet a suddenly dry throat and mouth. He rubbed his forehead as he closed his eyes. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? What you’ve said? There’s a target on your back that I can’t help you get rid of. This isn’t like before, _vod_.” 

“I’ve stood up for Fives! Which is more than any of the rest of you have done for him!” Rex snapped as he started to get to his feet. 

“None of us know what happened,” Cody murmured, feeling something sink inside him like a ship without its engines as he grabbed a piece of flimsi and wrote down a set of coordinates and a comm number. “It’s classified above everyone, even the Jedi.” He didn’t look at Rex as he shoved the flimsi forward, tapping it with two fingers and willing his idiot of a batchmate to pick it up and figure it out. They were still accurate, or as accurate as they could be since he couldn’t keep in touch with her, but Rex wasn’t an idiot and the Force provided. 

He took a deep breath as he looked up, noticing Rex’s puzzled expression and cleared his throat. “I hope you know that you are leaving me no choice,” he said in as an official voice as he could muster. “You have too many black marks against you to do anything but issue your execution.” 

Rex sat down slowly, staring at Cody blankly. It took a moment, it seemed, before the severity of the situation finally dawned on him. He was losing the 501st, Torrent, his Jedi--everything. Because he was trying to honor the unjustified death--supposedly--of the Shiny he’d taken under his wing. The unfortunate truth was sometimes shit happened and you had to move on. Rex knew that better than any of them. “Cody, _no_,” he breathed. 

“Skywalker can’t save you,” Cody said as he tugged his datapad closer, refusing to look at his batchmate. At this point it was mostly show in case they pulled the recordings in his office and he needed Rex to _leave_ before he did, or said, anything else incriminating. Like thank him. “Even Kenobi can’t save you. No one can.” He pulled up the execution order and took a deep breath as he began to fill it out. His hand shook as he entered Rex’s numbers and his eyes burned. “_I_ can’t do anything to stop this, _vod_.” 

Cody looked up to see Rex’s bloodless face as he gripped his helmet so tightly Cody could hear the plastoid of his gloves creak. “Cody, there’s got to be a different way,” he said, voice high and breathless with anxiety. It reminded Cody of the Rex he’d been before when they were little and Rex had been so scared of failing his sims as he stuck close to him and Wolffe, Bly and Fox so he’d be ignored and passed over. 

Cody finished the order and signed it, knuckling at his eyes as he tried to breathe through the knot of pain in his chest. He tapped the flimsi again, _pointedly_, and looked away. “The order’s been signed, Rex,” he said. “You can do the honorable thing--stay here and wait for the MPs to come up and arrest you, or you can run and let them hunt you down. Either way, you.” Cody coughed, clearing his throat. The MPs would never hunt Rex down, there were bigger battles to fight, more important fish to find than one clone who didn’t know when to shut up. “You can’t contact us, any of us, after this.” 

“My men, my General--” 

“Are no longer your concern,” Cody said as he rubbed at his nose, sniffing. Did he need one of those allergy shots his General constantly bitched about? His nose felt thick and itchy and his head was pounding. He felt awful. Kriff this, all this. “Either choice, it’s no longer something you need to worry about.” 

“Y-you’ll look after yourself, right?” Rex said, voice hesitant. Cody could hear plastoid creak in movement, the scrape of flimsi, the way things rustled and moved; Cody squeezed his eyes closed so he didn’t know one way or another. “You, Wolffe, Fox, and the rest, right? Just, keep an eye on each other.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about since you’re not here,” Cody said, clearing his throat again. 

Silence. 

He gave it another few minutes before he grabbed his comm and sent a message off to Boil. He alerted General Kenobi to Rex’s change in status and asked the Jedi to make a recommendation for a new commanding officer for General Skywalker from Torrent as Cody was personally compromised. Boil arrived as the MPs did, a bottle of booze tucked under one arm. 

“Hullo boys,” Boil greeted with a jaunty wave. “No one here for you to arrest.” Boil came over and nudged a datapad on Cody’s desk as he set the bottle of alcohol down. “General Kenobi sent this over to help you with your paperwork,” he said with a small nod. “And apologies, since most of it is his.” 

Cody stood from behind his desk and addressed the MPs. “An execution order has been issued for CT-7567, Captain Rex,” he said, proud of the way his voice didn’t shake. “Find him, apprehend him, and execute him. Pass it along to the others, the orders have been signed and transmitted.” He nodded at the MPs who saluted as they left. 

Boil waited until they were alone before waggling the bottle at Cody. “Need a drink?” 

Cody dropped back into his chair with a bitter laugh that turned into a choked cry. “Boil,” he tried to say, only the name came out in a strangled moan. 

Boil set the bottle down and came around Cody’s desk, kneeling down in front of him and tugging Cody into a hug. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Boil hushed as he rocked Cody gently, pressing Cody’s head against his shoulder much like Cody had to Boil when Waxer had died. They curled together, Boil rocking and shushing Cody as he gave in to his grief and tears. 

He could only pray to his General’s Force that Rex found Ahsoka and that he stayed off the grid and didn’t try to contact them directly. Cody didn’t think he could protect Rex if he was blatant about it. Cody just wanted his brother to be safe, to be happy. Hopefully, Ahsoka would help him be both since Rex couldn’t trust his brothers for either. 


End file.
